Not really sure what you referring to Mattiass. There will be no chainsuck with such design if you think about tooth shape. The way it is designed it allows the chain to leave fairly easy at the bottom and hold quite tight on the top. Back pedaling is still fine as well.

edit,got it Mattias. I actually got what you meant. So with longer spindle you get chainline like on GXP and that is in the middle of the cassette.With shorter one you get chainline between 6-7 cog. That would be fine if you just use big cogs, but if you are going to use whole cassette then smallest cogs will suffer. So there is a need to add the spacer on the drive hand side to help a bit, or accept the fact that small gears will work a bit loud.

Chainline can be also adjusted by the size of the chainring! That is the beauty most people don't get.. Optimal chainline is in middle of the cassette. so if you spend more time on the bigger cogs on the rear - then use tha smaller chainring. That will push you to use middle of the cassette again.If you tend to run more on the smaller ones on the back - put bigger chainring. This will push you again to middle of the cassette.Idea behind is that you have to put such a ring up front to run middle of the cassette most of the time.

When you go on the ride you will actually notice that 70% of the time you spend on just few rings - if you make them to be in the middle of the cassette - then you have ideal setup!

hi, tooth profile is same now. Difference is that 104BCD rings have wide-narrow addition as well, so in theory they are a bit better in certain conditions. If you are thinking about very aggressive riding i would choose 104BCD rings as they will hold chain a bit better in such conditions without any chainguide (my testing samples i gave to local enduro hero's worked excellent- they couldn't drop a chain a single time with no chainguide) . But if you are thinking about any guide like most guys use anyway than Spiderless ring is excellent in every condition.

I have posted this on my build thread but would be very interested to hear your thoughts...

I have just put an Absolute Black chainring and XTR clutch rear mech on my Scalpel and it isn't an entirely faultless solution. In the dry these chain rings seems to be perfect.

It has only taken me 200km to drop the chain repeatedly. The worst was during a very muddy, very wet 60km ride where there was gritty mud building up around the wide teeth on the chainring which stops the chain from sitting low down on the teeth like it should. The shape of the wide teeth does not allow the mud to be pushed down and off the tooth as it does on the narrow/ normal teeth. Several times during the ride I noticed the chain sitting high on the teeth then eventually clunk down and locate properly (or fall off).

Using the narrow/ wide ring with a chain guide is daft because the chain still sits high on the ring in mud and catches the top of the chain guide. A normal single speed chain ring seems like the better all round solution if using a chain guide.

I can't help feeling a better design when wanting to use without a chain guide is probably a more normal single speed chain ring tooth profile with very long, hooked teeth. FSA are soon to be releasing the Megatooth ring which does exactly that and aims to avoid the narrow/ wide approach which seems to be prone to issues in thick, gritty mud... at least in my limited experience.

I noticed yesterday that you have added a sentence to the website to essentially say they may not work well in mud... shame there wasn't any mention of issues like that when I bought them

Not a real grumble, and I am happy you have updated the website to make others aware of the possible limitations of wide/ narrow because no other manufacturers have so much as mentioned it.... not sure it is the best British Winter set up

I am going to try and find a long tooth single speed ring (non-narrow/ wide) and see if that performs any better, especially in mud. Perhaps more pertinently, does it perform any worse... I think adding a very light chain watcher (Fibre-Lyte maybe?) might just be enough in most situations and still retain some of the "clean" appearance of the drivetrain. Having said that my chain has fallen off both towards the drive side and non-drive side

My personal cynical opinion is that the new mechs do most of the work and although some chain gripping effect is demonstrable hanging things off a narrow/ wide, in the real world use the chain ring grip effect seems limited.

Maybe a SRAM mech gives better results with these chainrings? Perhaps not if Nino is having issues too.

It seems funny that these kind of problems are just starting to crop up when a few months ago you couldn't find a bad word said about any ring of this design from any manufacturer. Perhaps releasing them at the start of Summer helped

Mud is the only issue with these chainrngs. And i am very clear about that from the start. If you will ride in the deep mud or a lot of debris will stick to chain/chainring then you will drop it. Simple reason is that there is not much place between chain/tooth. This is why it works.

So if you ride in deep mud = light chain watcher for your winter time.No mud or just a rainy day = you are ok with just a chainring. Riding a fully rigid hardtail? - you will most likely drop a chain from time to time as vibrations are much bigger. It best performs on FULL SUS bikes and this is proven. And one more - please do not use KMC chains. They are out of spec in term of links dimensions and will make you trouble with my rings. Sram or Shimano chains are best for that.

I have posted this on my build thread but would be very interested to hear your thoughts...

my dear friend - sorry i missed that thread for a while. So you live in Wales. I have been there several times... and must say that not in many places is that... muddy. Really hard conditions. UK is the only country where i get sporadic feedback like yours.Rest of the world has a lot less rain and chainrings are working great.

Like you mentioned - really thick mud will clog the chain and this will not work ideal sometimes. So for some parts of the world where is really muddy all the time it's hard to have such chainring on the bike full season without a guide. Original Sram XX1 users have same dilemma.

I live close to Milton Keynes (UK). As you may know it was raining for some time now.. but chainrings still work fine. We have lots of sand here in the woods, so mud is not a clay type and it clears quickly.

It really depends on the conditions and type of mud. I know it sounds silly, but the only mud i see it does not work is a clay type of thing, where it literally glues to the drivertain. But then - how many of you will ride in that?? I do to test my products all year round. But most refuses to go on the ride or they use "winter bike" as a singlespeed.

So i don't think it's much of an issue as not many people are brave enough to ride in such demanding conditions. After such ride you have worn bottom bracket and brake pads, so let's be more fair looking at end of spectrum of conditions most people do ride.

As before, the chainring grumble wasn't really aimed at Absolute Black it was more of a general observation for the narrow/ wide approach in general. It is really good you are so open as to possible limitations here on an open forum which is something I think a lot of companies could benefit from.

The limitations on the website are not obvious however (and there was no mention of mud issues on the website when I bought like there is now) as Scatterbug says...

The only bad point from a consumer point of view is that is has taken a little while for the mud discussion to surface properly in general (again not aimed directly at AB).

More disappointing was that the chainring is failing in "Summer mud" (i.e. dry for weeks then rain on the day of a ride only) here in the UK so it would seem Winter in completely out of the question. I mean if I am riding with Racing Ralphs front and rear then it isn't really that muddy AB ring and chain watcher is also not an option since the chain still sits high on the ring and would lock up/ jam/ fall off. If you are using a chain watcher/ chain guide I think a normal ring is a better mud option. I have been riding in the South of the UK in a variety of soil types and still the same problems, not just clay based mud. Anything other than Surrey Hills/ Gorrick style terrain will always cause issue I think which for a MTB (where mud is unavoidable). Wales has actually been kindest to me with not too much deep much and more rock/ root based terrain that dries well.

So I guess my main question is do you see an opportunity for a new design of chainring to be used with clutch mechs which is mud proof? Perhaps along the lines of the FSA megatooth long, hooked profile, and with a more traditional triangle cross section to allow the mud to be pushed off? I think there is sufficient demand for this not just MTB, and not just in the UK since I notice a lot of interest from Cyclocross riders in your rings. I can't imagine they are going to be super happy on the narrow/ wide design when the muddy, winter racing start, especially without a clutch mech. Is there any possibility of a second tooth profile? It would really set AB apart from the millions of narrow/ wide designs now coming to market.. I would be happy to test this out

You don't need a clutch mech to ride that ring at all. Lots of my customers proved it already. Saying that all above and below i suspect that something wrong may be wrong with your setup as well, as even in the muddy conditions you should not encounter that many problems. If you have worn chain then in the mud it will go on top of the tooths even easier. So please check that first.

send me an email (contact@absoluteblack.cc) so i will have one ready to test in a moth with long tooths. I worked before on high tooths as well, but then other stuff took my time. I am not sure how such design will hold the chain yet, but it will clear the mud surely. Width of the tooths is not an issue (they will live longer that way), it's just the thickness of the thick ones... so quare shape tooths perform actually better than triangular(old style) ones.

Please notice that my spiderless chainrings does not have wide/narrow profile (but share same tooth shape) and no one ever complained about mud, but then chain retention is weaker, so you have to use chain watcher in more demanding conditions.

One more thing DanW - please check with new chain, as i suspect this may be an issue as well. Just asking to have full visibility of situation.

Forgot to add also - if you look carefully on FSA new rings you will notice that tooths are as wide as mine but because tooths are longer it looks like they are slimmer.

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